(An instruction. Of Asaph.) Give ear, O my people, to my law; incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
The psalm opens with a call to listen, and the speaker claims the people as His own. What follows is Israel's history, which raises two questions: who is speaking, and why does a history lesson carry the force of law?
The psalm's heading is the word "Maschil." One commentator explains the kind of learning that word means:
The word Maschil means to become intelligent by receiving instruction. That implies nearness, intimacy and the company of a guide.
Asaph writes the psalm, but the words "my people" belong to a higher speaker. One commentator puts the human author in his place:
It is God who tells His people to give ear to His law and to incline their ears to hear His words — little as they have done so in the past (v. 1). Asaph is His mouthpiece here, and he opens his mouth in a parable. But we look far higher than Asaph for the Source of this parable, which holds dark (or puzzling) truths inside it (v. 2).
By verse 3 the speaker stands among the hearers, who have heard what their fathers told them. Another writer asks who joins the two:
It begins with the right of Jehovah: "Give ear, O my people." But it also stands in the love of the same interests, "which we have heard and known, which our fathers have told us." Who makes this mighty link? It is the Spirit of Christ, who is Jehovah, speaking in the remnant. They recognise His truth among the people, the nation.
Older translations say "law" here where the ESV says "teaching." One commentator weighs the two words:
"Give ear, O my people, to my law." Some would say "instruction," and that is indeed the primary meaning of the word. Yet it is the word regularly used for "law" (torah). We must take it as at least implying the authority that truth always has for the true.
The same writer adds that a word is not less binding because its meaning lies deep:
So it is not only what is clear at first sight that carries authority. Yet how many people excuse themselves from obedience on exactly that ground! "Deep" things are for the deep, they say — for people with the mind for it, or the taste, or the learning, or the leisure, or all of these! But when the psalmist calls these things "deep things" or "parables," is he commending them to us, or the reverse? Does he speak to the many or to the few?
On the face of it, the psalm offers the listener plain national history. One commentator explains why it still counts as a parable:
The psalmist speaks with the authority of one coming from God. He appeals to the people to listen to the testimony of the law. He is about to utter a parable: he gives us, in fact, history. It is history, and history shows us the failure of the people of God. But it is also a parable, teaching the hidden way of God to those who incline their ear to hear. Behind the failure and weakness of the people, such hearers will see the strength of the Lord, the "wonderful works that He has done." So the history of the people turns into "the praises of the Lord."
The hearing asked for here is not meant to stop with the first hearer. One writer points out the place children hold in the psalm:
I notice the teaching of children in it, as the order of blessing. Compare Genesis 18:19; the end of Psalm 22; and Deuteronomy 4:9-10; 6:7; 11:19. It is a distinct feature of that age, and of ordered blessing. It counts greatly on God, and Christianity does not pass it by; see Ephesians 6.
By the end of the psalm, the call to hear the law has led to what law itself could never give:
It sets out the total failure of Israel under God's government. Law can only end in the ruin of sinful man, whatever long-suffering goodness goes with it. Sovereign grace alone avails. The testimony the Lord raised in Jacob was excellent, and the law He set in Israel was holy and good. But what could either do, when the people were what they were? Then He chose Judah, Zion and David, the pledge and security of final blessing and triumph, in the day when the children will indeed learn to profit by their fathers' failure.
- Listen — the heading marks this as a psalm of instruction. That means learning close to a guide, not at a distance.
- Law — the word can be read as "teaching," but it carries the authority truth always has for an honest heart.
- Parable — the psalm hands you history, and under that failure runs the hidden way of God.
- Pass on — teaching the children is the order of blessing, and Christianity keeps that pattern.
- Grace — the history ends where law could not reach. God chose Judah, Zion and David as the security of blessing.
I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter riddles from of old,
Asaph calls his people to listen. He promises a parable and riddles from long ago. Yet what follows is just the story of Israel, from Egypt to David. Two questions follow. Why call plain history a dark saying? And why did Jesus take this line onto His own lips centuries later?
The two phrases in the verse are not two different things. One writer sets the line beside Psalm 49 and draws them together:
What is a parable? In Scripture it is often "a thing darkly or figuratively expressed." So, "I will incline my ear to a proverb; I will solve my riddle to the music of the lyre" (Ps. 49:4)... said the sweet psalmist of Israel, and from his language we gather that a "parable" and a "dark saying" were the same thing.
(The writer's point rests on an older translation of Psalm 49:4, which reads "parable" and "dark saying" where the ESV has "proverb" and "riddle.")
The same Hebrew word appears in other places, and they show its range:
Elsewhere translators give this same Hebrew word as dark speeches (Num. 12:8), riddle (Judges 14:12-19), hard questions (1 Kings 10:1), and dark sentences (Dan. 8:23).
Israel's story was already written down elsewhere. So how does retelling it become a parable?
From beginning to end it is historic — an appeal to facts which we already have in books devoted to the "wonderful works" of the Lord in relation to Israel... But this history, being what it is, is just what is suited to utter divine secrets to the heart that is attentive. It sets God's ways beside these men and their ways... So, since we are men, and the same God is ours and theirs, the history becomes a parable, a comparison. As we set the two side by side, it brings out what we are and what God is to us. The very history becomes a mirror for us, not merely of ourselves, but of ourselves in the light of God.
Calling something a riddle can become an excuse to leave it alone. The same writer answers that dodge:
"Deep" things are for deep people — those who have the mind for it, or the taste, or the learning, or the time, or all of these! Parables, types, prophecies... become nothing but spiritual knick-knacks... But is the psalmist commending these things to us, or the reverse, when he speaks of them as "deep things" or "parables"? Does he address himself to the many or to the few?... There is a spiritual elite, if you like to call it that, but devotedness and diligence of heart define it.
Asaph says "my mouth." But who stands behind that mouth?
Asaph is God's mouthpiece here, who opens his mouth in a parable, but we look far higher than Asaph for the Source of this parable... They had heard something of these things from their fathers. So Asaph was not telling them something new. He was pressing home what the history of Israel means. We often lose the meaning of things we already know.
Asaph speaks the riddle so that it reaches the next generation. One writer sees the same order carried on into Christianity:
I notice the teaching of children as the order of blessing in it... It is not left out even in Christianity: see Ephesians 6:4.
The puzzle is that a people so favoured could fail so completely — and the answer lies outside them:
It sets out the total failure of Israel under God's government. Law can only end in the ruin of sinful man, however much patient goodness comes with it. Sovereign grace alone avails... Do what He would in nature or law, Israel brought Him only shame, with misery on themselves. Then He chose Judah, Zion, and David, the pledge and security of ultimate blessing.
The Gospel record shows this word fulfilled in Jesus. One writer marks both the likeness and the advance:
With this the parables spoken to the crowd end, and He did not speak to them except in parables. The prophet's word was being fulfilled in Him (Ps. 78:2). He was taking the place of another Asaph, to speak of things hidden even deeper than the things Asaph spoke of. So the psalmist's words are quoted freely, not word for word. His deep things lay in a past history, and he was given its meaning to utter. Christ's deep things lay in a history of things still to come. Sadly, its general lesson reflects that older story of another people.
- Riddle. "Parable" and "dark saying" mean one thing: a truth put in figures. Elsewhere the same Hebrew word becomes riddle, hard questions, or dark speeches.
- Mirror. Old history becomes a parable because the same God deals with people like us. It shows us ourselves in His light.
- Open. The psalmist speaks the deep things to the whole people, not to a learned few. The one qualification is devotedness and diligence of heart.
- Handed on. Asaph speaks the riddle so it reaches the children. Teaching children is the order of blessing in this psalm, and Christianity keeps it.
- Answered. Sovereign grace answers the puzzle of total failure under law. The same mouth opens again in Christ, telling a history still to come.
Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us
Asaph calls his message a parable, but verse 3 says where the material came from: an earlier generation handed it down. So why repeat an old national story, and what should happen to it next?
Where did this material come from? One writer notes that it is already on record in Israel's books:
From beginning to end it is historic — an appeal to facts which we already have in books devoted to the "wonderful works" of the Lord in relation to Israel. For God never left such things to tradition alone. What would tradition be in the hands of people whose incompetence this very history shows so plainly? ... Since we are men, and the same God is ours and theirs, the history becomes a parable, a comparison. As we set things side by side, it brings out what we are and what God is to us. So the very history becomes a mirror for us — not just of ourselves, but of ourselves in the light of God.
The psalmist calls his account a parable, yet what follows is plain national history. One commentator shows how that same story ends in song:
He is about to utter a parable: he gives us, in fact, history. It is history, and it shows us the failure of the people of God. But it is also a parable, teaching the hidden way of God to those who listen. Such listeners will see, behind the failure and weakness of the people, the strength of the Lord — the "wonderful works that He has done." So the history of the people turns into "the praises of the Lord."
One writer describes what happens when our own story and the older one meet:
Then our own history and the history of God's people in every age become one glorious whole. That whole fills the soul with light and blessing. "Things that we have heard and known" and what "our fathers have told us" come into the most instructive agreement. Our lives no longer look like broken, disjointed, meaningless fragments. They are lifted into significance and power. The actors in all this human history become friends and counsellors.
Asaph is not announcing a discovery. His hearers already had the facts — and that is why he had to speak:
They had already heard some of this from their fathers. So Asaph was not telling them something new. He was pressing home the significance of Israel's history. Even though we know such things well, their significance is often lost on us.
One writer gathers the passages that show why God wanted the story told at all:
These passages are enough to make it plain. God placed on the Jewish parent the responsibility of teaching his children His word, His work, and His ways, so that the children's hope might also be in God. They were to teach with the confident expectation of God's blessing on their work. They knew it was not His will that one of their little ones should perish.
Another writer carries the same duty over to Christian homes, and says what to teach:
And well indeed may Christians recount to their children what God has done. We should ground our little ones in the great truths of God's word. Plant the facts of redemption, resurrection, and ascension in their minds and memories.
Being told by your fathers is where faith starts, not where it ends. One commentator looks at three generations of a single family:
It is beautiful to see sincere faith living on in one generation after another of the same family: the grandmother Lois, the mother Eunice, and the child Timothy. But it is beautiful also to read, in the third of those generations, the tears and the affections that show full assurance. Their religion was not copied, not merely taught, not the mere catching of a family influence. It was the precious inward power of a kingdom which God Himself has set up in the soul.
- Received — Asaph's material was not new. The facts were already told and written down, for God never left them to memory alone.
- Recognised — read with care, the same old history becomes a parable and a mirror. It shows us ourselves in the light of God.
- Recounted — God gave parents the task of passing it on. Christian parents too should ground their children in redemption, resurrection and ascension.
- Rooted — handed-down faith must become personal. Not copied from the family, but God's own work in the soul.
- Result — every retelling aims at one thing: the next generation setting their hope in God. Even a record of failure ends in His praise.
We will not hide [them] from their sons, shewing forth to the generation to come the praises of Jehovah, and his strength, and his marvellous works which he hath done.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children;
Psalm 78 retells Israel's history so that the next generation would learn from it, and verse 5 names what God set in place: a testimony and a law. It raises a question every family faces: who must pass God's truth on to the children coming after?
Verse 5 names two things God put in place: a testimony to Himself, and a law. One writer compares that law with the laws of the surrounding nations.
Early in their history God established a testimony to Himself in Jacob, and He appointed a law in Israel — a law far wiser than any laws the nations had adopted (v. 5). When He gave the command to their fathers, He made it clear that they were to teach His laws to the children. The next generation would then be fully informed, and would pass this on from one generation to another (v. 6).
The psalm does not praise the fathers who received this charge. One writer reads verse 5 in the flow of the whole psalm, and shows what the law and the testimony were meant to prevent.
There was not only a redemption long ago, which faith looked back to, but also a testimony given, and a law to guide Israel's ways, so that they should make them known to their children. But the fathers had been a stubborn and rebellious generation. God gave the law and the testimony so that the children would not be like their fathers. Yet they were like them, and this psalm sets out their history.
"Which He commanded our fathers" fixes where the duty sits. Commenting on verses 5–7, one writer names both who must teach and what the teaching aims at.
God placed the responsibility on the Jewish parent to teach his children the knowledge of His word, His work, and His ways, so that the children's hope might also be in God. They were to teach in the confident expectation that God would bless their work, knowing that it was not His will that one of their little ones should perish.
The command went to the fathers themselves. That matters in practice, because parents can hand the teaching to someone who seems better qualified.
There is also a very common danger of handing over to others the responsibility of training children for the Lord. However devoted and steady those people may be who teach their children, nothing can relieve parents of their own responsibility... "You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise." Parents must seize every opportunity, because this is the one responsibility God has laid on the Christian parent.
No parent can make a child a Christian, and that fact can look like a reason to hold back. One writer answers it, and marks the line between the parent's part and God's.
True, we cannot make our children Christians; and we ought not to turn them into people who merely keep up outward religion, or into hypocrites. But we are not called to make them anything. We are only called to do our duty by them, and to leave the results to God. God instructs and commands us to bring up our children "in the discipline and instruction of the Lord." When is this "bringing up" to begin?... Surely at the beginning. The very moment we enter a relationship, we also take on the responsibility that comes with it.
The verses that follow name the goal of all this passing on.
The purpose of all this was that each generation might set their hope in God, not forgetting His marvelous works, but truly keeping His commandments (v. 7). Such positive obedience would guard them from the stubborn rebellion their fathers had shown (v. 8).
- God gave. The testimony and the law both came from Him, and that law was wiser than anything the nations had drawn up for themselves.
- God commanded. With the law came an order: the fathers were to pass it on to their children.
- Parents carry it. The duty is personal. No one else can take it, however devoted they are, and it starts the moment you become a parent.
- Children receive it. The aim was that a generation not yet born would know, and would in turn tell their own children.
- Hope is the point. The chain ends with each generation setting its hope in God, instead of repeating the stubborn rebellion of the fathers.
That the generation to come might know [them], the children that should be born; that they might rise up and tell [them] to their children,
God set up a testimony in Israel that was meant to travel: from the fathers, to their children, and on to children who had not yet been born. This verse names the target of all that teaching. It is not the next generation only, but the generation after that, who will "arise and tell them to their children."
The children who receive this teaching are not the end point. They become the next carriers.
When He commanded their fathers, He made it clear that they should teach His laws to the children. The next generation would then be fully informed too, and would pass this on from one generation to another (v. 6).
The psalm names two things that travel together: what God commanded, and what God did.
Before turning to the history of Israel, the psalmist reminds us that God had "established a testimony." The fathers were to pass it on to the children, and the children to their children. The aim was that they might set their hope in God, walk in obedience, and not forget His works.
God built the retelling into the testimony, and He chose who would do the telling.
The second part here declares that God designed this ongoing testimony. It keeps the memory of His acts and the authority of His commands alive, because man always tends to forget. The living voice of the preacher was to make the Word living, in a lower sense of that word. And the preacher was not to be an official one, but, as we may say, the one everywhere installed by nature. God, as the Author of nature, confirms that appointment.
The instruction behind this psalm puts the job in the parent's hands. It starts with the parent's own heart.
First, the word taught must be in the heart of the parent. He must have it and love it, for indeed no one can teach anything of which they have not themselves felt the power. Second, the responsibility is personal and cannot be handed off: the parent himself must be the instructor. Third, he must be diligent, seizing every passing opportunity to impress God's word on the hearts of his children. So it is not too much to say that this responsibility outweighs every other. That includes anything affecting the path and welfare of his children in this world.
The chain of telling has a destination, stated in the next verse: hope set on God. One thing blocks it.
This touches the root of the trouble. It is "unbelief." This hindered Israel of old from setting their hope in God (Psalm 78:7). This left them open to forgetting His works and breaking His commandments. Their hearts were not set right and their spirits were not steadfast with God. It is impossible that He should lie or be unfaithful — indeed He is gracious. He invites faith, and faith may be bold to rest on Him with confidence.
Israel's later history shows what a break in the chain produces.
Here, in Judges, a generation arose that did not know the Lord and did not know His works... The fathers and mothers clearly carried the responsibility of passing on to the children the great events of Israel's history and the Lord's blessings to them. So if a generation arose that did not know the Lord or His works, that points to a lapse in the teaching of the fathers and mothers... and because they did not know His works it was so easy for them to give up. They had nothing to hold on to.
Three generations can hold the same faith, and it can still be more than family habit in the third.
It is beautiful to see sincere faith living in one generation after another of the same family, as in the grandmother Lois, the mother Eunice, and the child Timothy. But it is beautiful also to read, in the third of those family generations, the tears and the affections that draw out full assurance. Their religion is not imitation. It is not schooling, and it is not just a family influence they picked up. It is the precious power, worked inside them, of a kingdom which God Himself has set up in the soul.
- Told. God set up a testimony. The fathers tell the children, and those children tell theirs.
- Repeated. The retelling is built in on purpose. It keeps the memory of His acts and the authority of His commands alive, because man always tends to forget.
- Personal. The appointed teacher is not an official but the parent. The word comes first in his own heart, the duty cannot be passed on, and the effort is daily.
- Aimed. The point of the telling is that they would set their hope in God; unbelief is what stopped Israel from doing it.
- Owned. Where the teaching lapses, a generation grows up with nothing to hold on to. Where it lands, the faith is no longer family influence but God's own work in the soul.
And that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but observe his commandments;
Verse 7 gives the reason behind the two verses before it. God gave the law to the fathers. The fathers told their children, and those children told theirs. It all aims at one result: a generation that hopes in God, remembers His works, and keeps His commands.
The verse is not a new command. It states the goal of a chain of teaching that runs from parents to children.
Before turning to the history of Israel, the psalmist reminds us that God had "established a testimony." The fathers were to pass it on to their children, and those children to theirs. The aim was that they might set their hope in God, walk in obedience, and not forget His works.
God laid this task on parents, and He tied a goal to it.
God placed the responsibility on the Jewish parent of teaching his children to know His word, His work, and His ways. The goal was that the children's hope might also be in God. So they were to teach in the confident expectation that God would bless their work, knowing that it was not His will that one of their little ones should perish.
The same writer draws two conditions out of Moses' words to Jewish fathers in Deuteronomy:
First, the word taught must be in the heart of the parent. He must have it and love it. No one can teach anything whose power they have not felt themselves. Second, the responsibility is personal and cannot be handed to someone else. The parent himself must be the teacher.
Hope, memory and obedience belong together here. The next verse shows what they guard against.
This was to be done so that each generation might set their hope in God, not forgetting His marvelous works, but truly keeping His commandments (v. 7). Such positive obedience would keep them from the negative character their fathers had shown, which was stubborn rebellion (v. 8). Their fathers were a generation that had not set its heart right, and their spirit was not faithful to God.
So why did that earlier generation never reach this goal? One writer traces the failure to a single root:
Here the root of the trouble is exposed. It is "unbelief." This stopped Israel of old from setting their hope in God (Psalm 78:7). This left them open to forget His works and to break His commandments, with the heart not right and the spirit not steadfast with God. It is impossible for Him to lie or to be unfaithful; indeed, He is gracious. Faith is invited, and it may be bold to rest on Him with confidence. That is even more true now that He has raised Christ from the dead and given Him glory, so that our faith and hope might be in God.
Notice the order. Unbelief comes first. Forgetting and disobedience follow it.
The same forgetting shows up later. One writer compares the disciples' amazement at sea, a day after they handed out the multiplied loaves, with Israel's habit:
Israel of old tended to forget the Lord and their rescue from Egypt (Ps. 78:7, 1). In the same way, the worries of the moment wiped the wonderful mercies of the past from the minds of the disciples. They even forgot the miracle of the previous afternoon, when they had the honour of handing out the Lord's provision. That is the natural bent of our hearts, for they were men with the same feelings as ours.
Does this duty end with Israel? One writer sees it as a mark of that era, yet not dropped afterwards:
I note the teaching of children as the order of blessing in this psalm. Compare Genesis 18:19; Deuteronomy 4:9-10; 6:7; 11:19. It is a distinct mark of that period of God's dealings, and of blessing in its ordered form. Christianity does not pass it by either: see Ephesians 6:4.
- The goal. The law, the fathers, the retelling in verses 5–6 all serve one end: hope in God in the next generation.
- The teachers. God gave the work to parents who have and love His word themselves. No one can do it for them.
- The proof. Hope produces two things: memory of His works and obedience to His commands. Lose the memory and the obedience goes with it.
- The block. Unbelief stopped Israel from hoping. Forgetting and disobedience followed.
- The reach. The disciples forgot the loaves within a day. The call to teach children still stands in Christianity.
And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that prepared not their heart, and whose spirit was not stedfast with God.
Psalm 78 looks back over Israel's history. The psalmist tells it so the next generation would learn from it instead of repeating it. Verse 8 gives the negative aim of that teaching. Parents were to tell their children what God had done, so the children would not turn out like their fathers. The verse then names what was wrong with those fathers: their heart and their spirit.
Verses 5–7 give the chain. Fathers pass on what God has done to their children, so that each new generation hopes in God. Verse 8 names what that chain must prevent.
This was to be done so that each generation might set their hope in God, not forgetting His marvellous works, but truly keeping His commandments (v. 7). So, with such positive obedience, they might be kept from the negative character their fathers had shown of stubborn rebellion (v. 8). For they were a generation that had not rightly set its heart, their spirit being not faithful to God. Why should this have been, when God had so greatly blessed them?
The verse names two failures, not one: a heart not fixed and a spirit not steady. One writer ties both to where their affections rested.
Before turning to the history of Israel, the psalmist reminds us that God had "established a testimony." The fathers were to pass it on to the children, and the children to their children. In this way they might set their hope in God, walk in obedience, and not forget His works. So they would escape the stubbornness of former generations whose affections were not set upon God, and whose spirits were not steadfast with God.
The fathers trusted themselves. The forty years in the desert were the test that brought the state of their hearts into the open.
God tested this foolish self-confidence. He led them forty years in the wilderness, "that He might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not" (Deut. 8:2). Scripture records these results clearly. They proved to be "a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God." Few indeed of those who crossed the Red Sea entered the promised land (Ps. 78:8; Num. 32:10-12). Speaking to the people, Moses says they had "rebelled against the command of the LORD" their God (Deut. 1:26, 43).
The very next verse shows Ephraim's soldiers armed and running from battle. One commentator points out that verse 8 already explains it.
"The Ephraimites, armed with the bow, turned back on the day of battle" (Ps. 78:9). Why? What is the matter? So well armed, and yet so cowardly? This seems strange. Read the previous verse and you will stop wondering. There they are called "a generation whose heart was not steadfast, whose spirit was not faithful to God."
The psalm lists many sins. It also traces them all to one root.
A thorough rottenness of heart shows in all their ways. They did not keep the covenant of God. They saw His works and soon forgot them. God fed them by a miracle every day, yet they kept tempting Him through unbelief. Verse 22 uncovers the root of all this evil: "they did not believe in God." And again (verse 37): "Their heart was not steadfast toward Him." It was a nation not born of God that provoked Him like this. No heart is right with Him that is not born of Him — that is not by faith established in His saving grace. Meanwhile, the Church receives the warning she needs through the Spirit's record of what happened to that faithless generation.
after_note: none
Verse 8 shows the outcome to avoid. Verses 5–7 give parents the work of preventing it.
God placed the responsibility on the Jewish parent of teaching his children His word, His work, and His ways. The goal was that the children's hope might also be in God. They were to teach expecting God to bless their work. They knew it was not His will that one of their little ones should perish.
- Told. God set up a testimony to be passed from fathers to children, and the home was where that telling was to happen.
- Hoped. The aim was a new generation that hopes in God, remembers His works, and keeps His commandments.
- Hardened. Verse 8 is the opposite outcome: affections not fixed on God, and a spirit that would not stay steady with Him.
- Tested. Forty years in the wilderness did not create that state; it revealed what was already in the heart.
- Turned back. An unsteady heart fails on the day of battle. Ephraim was armed and still retreated. Commentators trace the root to unbelief.
The sons of Ephraim, armed bowmen, turned back in the day of battle.
Psalm 78 retells Israel's history so the next generation would not repeat it. The first failure it records is not a defeat by a stronger enemy but armed soldiers who ran from a battle they never fought.
The psalm names one tribe out of twelve. Ephraim had more reason than any other to stand its ground.
Ephraim represents all Israel in this case, but why? Ephraim had been greatly blessed and lifted up as the preferred son of Joseph, though Manasseh was the firstborn. Ephraim had every encouragement to be faithful to the Lord. In fact, of Joseph we read, "His bow remained in strength" (Gen. 49:24), a total contrast to Ephraim turning back, though armed. So those most blessed in Israel turned back when enemies attacked. They deserted the testimony of God.
The collapse makes no sense on its own. One line earlier, the psalm has already named the problem.
"The Ephraimites, armed with the bow, turned back on the day of battle" (Ps. 78:9). Why? What is the matter? So well armed, and yet so cowardly? This seems strange. Read the previous verse and you will stop wondering. They are called there "a generation that did not set their heart right, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God."
The weapon was not the problem. One writer gathers the places where a bow fails the man who holds it.
Man may have a bow, but in his hands it fails when he uses it. "The Ephraimites, armed with the bow, turned back on the day of battle" (Ps. 78:9), and as for the Lord's enemies, "the bow of the mighty is broken" (1 Sam. 2:4; Ps. 46:9; Jer. 49:35; Hosea 1:5; Hosea 2:18).
Why did they run? One writer looks at how a person's faith is formed long before the fighting starts.
When a trial comes, and there has been no personal dealing with God, we often find that we have only been imitating others. We then, like Ephraim, are "armed with the bow" and "turn back on the day of battle" (Psalm 78). But if we have been in the habit of bringing God in, we will turn to Him in the day of battle. Turning to Him is not turning our back to the enemy.
Centuries later Judah hired Ephraimite soldiers to swell its army. The verse had become their reputation.
God does not want hired soldiers in His battles — neither then, nor now… God knew how badly this body of Ephraimites would corrupt the army of Judah. And besides, the Ephraimites were not famous for their courage. "The Ephraimites, armed with the bow, turned back on the day of battle" was the shameful record behind them (Ps. 78:9).
Ephraim's story does not end on the battlefield. Israel's tent of worship, the tabernacle, once stood in their territory, at Shiloh.
Shiloh was a place within the territory of Ephraim, the tribe that held the firstborn's place. The tabernacle stood there at the close of the life of Joshua, who was also of the tribe of Ephraim. The ark had been moved from Gilgal and stayed at Shiloh until the Israelites carried it into the camp, where the Philistines captured it. God had put His name there. But because of the wickedness of the Israelites He forsook the tabernacle at Shiloh, and the place was later held up as a sign of desolation. Ephraim the firstborn pictures the flesh. Its breakdown in the day of battle made way for the election of God, who chose the tribe of Judah and Mount Zion. Ps. 78:9, 60-68; Jer. 7:12, 14; Jer. 26:6-9.
Verse 9 is not the last word for anyone who sees themselves in it.
It is never right for us, never for faith, to let the hands hang down, to say that there is no further hope. If you appeal to the God of hosts, you appeal to One who is never going to be overcome. Victory is upon His banners, even if you have been a retreating soldier. If, like the tribe of Ephraim, you have turned back in the day of battle, He still rallies. The mighty Leader rallies His scattered forces, and leads us back again to meet the enemy.
- Privilege. Ephraim held the firstborn's place and gave Israel Joshua. The tribe with the most encouragement to stand is the one recorded running.
- Heart. Verse 8 gives the reason: a generation that did not set their heart right, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God. The retreat was a heart problem before it was a battlefield one.
- Weapons. Bows do not make soldiers. A weapon in man's own hand fails him, and copied faith collapses when trial comes.
- Record. Failure leaves a trace. Ephraim's reputation still counted against them generations later, when Judah wanted their help.
- Rally. God answered Ephraim's breakdown by choosing Judah and Zion. He still gathers scattered forces, so a retreating soldier is not a finished one.
They kept not the covenant of God, and refused to walk in his law;
Psalm 78 retells Israel's history, and verse 10 names the cause of its collapse. The problem was not bad odds or weak resources, but a broken covenant and a refused law — so what hope is left for a people like that?
The psalm has just pictured Ephraim's archers retreating. One commentator insists they were not simply outmatched:
On the people's side, what we see is not merely failure. The psalm carefully explains that what might look like mere failure was in reality much more. With God, they could not fail. If they did so, it was because they refused to walk in His law.
The verse pairs two things: a covenant not kept, and a law refused. The second is the sharper charge, and it shows where our own troubles start:
Not only was this failure in keeping the covenant of God, but it was stubborn refusal to do so (v. 10). So our troubles usually come not from ignorance, but from stubbornly doing what we know is wrong. Why did they forget God's works and His former wonders? (v. 11). Because they had no regard for God Himself!
The psalm names Ephraim because Ephraim had the least excuse. The tribe had every advantage and every encouragement to stay faithful:
Ephraim had been greatly blessed and exalted as the preferred son of Joseph, though Manasseh was the firstborn. Ephraim had every encouragement to be faithful to the Lord. In fact, of Joseph we read, "his bow remained unmoved" (Gen. 49:24), a total contrast to Ephraim turning back, though armed. So the most blessed people in Israel, when enemies attacked, turned back and deserted the testimony of God.
Ephraim stands in for everyone. One tribe's retreat measures the whole nation's failure:
Ephraim, as a representative tribe, shows how completely the people failed to live up to this testimony. Though well equipped for war, they turned back on the day of battle. They disobeyed God and forgot His works and His wonders.
God claimed Israel as His own people, and that claim came with a demand. The verse exposes something deeper than a broken rule:
Israel was called to obedience, and the law given through Moses defined it. If the Lord called a people to be His, they must be conformed to His word. They had to learn that, being sinners, they had no power to please Him, but continually failed. They did not keep His covenant, and they refused to walk in His law. They forgot what He had done, and the wonderful works He had shown them in Egypt, in the desert, and in the land of Canaan. Still less did they judge themselves, remember His promises, or look ahead in faith to the Messiah.
There is a bitter contrast in the wording. God had come down to live among them; they would not walk in His law. Yet another writer points out that the refusal was never total:
Even though God stooped to walk among them, Israel "refused to walk according to his law" (Psalm 78:10)... Yet amid all the failure of the nation there were the godly, such as David, of whom God could say to Solomon, "if you will walk before me, as David your father walked, with integrity of heart and uprightness" (1 Kings 9:4). No matter how dark the day, God always had His faithful remnant who walked before Him for His pleasure.
A record this dark is not the end of the psalm. It clears the ground for the only thing that can still bless such a people:
Sovereign grace is the only resource of God, if He is to bless man. All His dealings, however gracious, fail to reach their goal. He loves His people, but He has nothing to bless them with except His own grace. If He went by the results of His dealings, He would give them up... But when all was at its worst, He wakes in His love to His people, because of their misery and His love to them. Then He accomplishes the purpose of His own grace in His own way. He chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which He loves, and He chose David His servant.
- Refused. The failure was not ignorance or weakness — it was a stubborn refusal to walk in a law they knew.
- Forgot. They forgot God's works because they had no regard for God Himself.
- Fled. Ephraim was armed, equipped and favoured, and still turned back. Advantages keep no one standing.
- Fell short. Being sinners, they had no power to please God, and they failed again and again.
- Found grace. With every human ground for blessing gone, God wakes in love and blesses out of His own grace — choosing Judah, Zion and David.
And forgot his doings, and his marvellous works which he had shewn them.
Psalm 78 retells Israel's history to show where it went wrong. This verse names the cause: they forgot what God had done for them.
The psalm announces a parable and then tells plain history. Both are true at once.
He is about to utter a parable: he gives us, in fact, history. While it is history that shows us the failure of the people of God, it is also a parable to teach the hidden way of God to those who incline their ear to hear. Such people will see, behind the failure and weakness of the people, the strength of the Lord — the "wonders that he has done." So the history of the people turns into "the praises of the Lord."
God set up His testimony to prevent exactly this.
Before turning to the history of Israel, the psalmist reminds us that God had "established a testimony." The fathers were to pass it on to the children, and the children to their children. The aim was that they might set their hope in God, walk in obedience, and not forget His works. This way they would escape the stubbornness of former generations. Those generations did not set their affections on God, and their spirits were not steadfast with God.
The lines just before name Ephraim, armed for battle and turning back. Nothing was lacking on God's side.
Equipped they were, and therefore able to have stood. God had not failed them; circumstances were not too strong for them. Nor did they lack any assurance of a successful outcome. God's own promise secured the ground they stood on: "Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours." Yet despite all this, they turned back. It was no mere failure: "they did not keep God's covenant, but refused to walk according to his law."
Forgetting here is not a slip of the mind. It has a cause, and the cause lies in the heart.
Not only was this a failure to keep the covenant of God, it was a stubborn refusal to keep it. So our troubles generally do not come through ignorance, but from stubbornly doing what we know is wrong. Why did they forget God's works and His former wonders? Because they had no regard for God Himself!
The "wonders" were not small or private events. They were public, overwhelming, and aimed straight at Israel's needs.
Yet what had He not done for them! It was no unknown God who laid claim to their obedience. He had shown Himself to them in mighty miracles. Those miracles shook to its core what was then the greatest kingdom on earth — the kingdom that held them in its cruel grip. He had made the sea yield a path for their escape, the waters standing in a heap while they passed through. He had led them Himself by what always runs opposite to nature yet answered their need: a cloud by day, the light of fire by night. In the wilderness He split the rocks for them and gave them drink in abundance.
If evidence could cure unbelief, this generation had plenty of it.
It was not merely a later generation that did this, whose memory of these things had faded over the years. It was the very generation that saw these miracles happen. People scoff now because they see no miracles; but they scoffed in the same way when the miracles were before their eyes. Unbelief was their only sin, as it has always been the sin that provokes judgment. Their unbelief did not come from lack of evidence, for of that there was plenty. It came from wills that rebelled against His easy yoke.
Michael Vogelsang turns the warning on the reader.
Forgetting is one of the dangers on a disciple's path. How quickly Israel forgot the hardships of Egypt and their grand deliverance! They started murmuring and crying, "we shall die in the wilderness." But are we not in the same danger? We quickly forget the answered prayers of yesterday, and the help found in personal need or in shared trials. And we dishonour our Lord through "little faith."
Israel's memory failed. The psalm ends on something that does not depend on it.
God's sovereign love for His people came in with power to deliver. He had chosen Judah, Zion and David, and set up a link in grace, by deliverance after failure. Faith can go back to God's works in redemption, but not to man's conduct under law.
- Remember — God set up a testimony so each generation would hand His works to the next. This verse marks where that chain broke.
- Regard — the memory failed because the heart failed: they had no regard for God Himself, so His works slipped away.
- Resources — Ephraim had arms, a promise, and no obstacle in the way. Forgetting made all of it useless.
- Reality — the generation that saw the sea opened and the rock split still refused to believe. Wonders alone hold no heart.
- Rescue — the psalm does not end in failure. God set up a link in grace, and faith goes back to His works of redemption, not to man's record.
In the sight of their fathers had he done wonders, in the land of Egypt, the field of Zoan.
This verse opens the long history lesson that fills the rest of Psalm 78. The psalmist starts the record where it began, in Egypt. He names two things: where God acted, and who watched Him do it.
Zoan was no obscure corner. It was the seat of Egypt's power, and the place where Moses confronted Pharaoh:
A city in Lower Egypt, built seven years after Hebron. It was the capital of the Hyksos, the shepherd kings of Egypt. Moses and Aaron met with Pharaoh here, and here the plagues fell; for it was in the field of Zoan that God did marvellous things.
The psalm's phrase matches the name the Egyptians themselves used for that plain:
A sandy plain, as vast as it is dreary, is called San today, in memory of the ancient name Zoan… It marks the position of that city of Tanis, which Egyptian texts and classical writers alike call "a great and splendid city of Egypt." The Egyptians gave this plain, with Tanis at its centre, the name Sokhot Zoan, "the plain of Zoan." The writer of the seventy-eighth Psalm uses exactly the same phrase.
The plagues were not raw disaster. They were God answering a king who had asked who He was:
How solemn, then, is the testimony of the Word of God about these plagues. They swept through the land of Egypt with all their devastating power, and they showed the judicial action of God. He revealed Himself as the God who "does according to His will in the army of the heavens, and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay His hand, or say to Him, What are you doing?" The proud Pharaoh had said in his haughty spirit, "Who is Jehovah, that I should obey His voice and let Israel go?" To him God revealed his own nothingness — he was only one of the earth's inhabitants, who count as nothing before Him.
"In the sight of their fathers" is the sting of the verse. The fathers did not hear rumours about God's power. They stood there and watched.
The psalm describes some of these wonders in verses 12–26, and they were marvellous indeed. In the land of Egypt God sent the ten plagues. Egypt suffered, while God protected Israel (v. 12). Then God divided the Red Sea. He made the waters stand upright, a wall on either side of a passage, so that Israel might pass through unharmed (v. 13). How could Israel ever forget such a miracle?
Yet they did forget, and the psalm has already said why in the verse before:
Why did they forget God's works and His former wonders? (v. 11). Because they had no regard for God Himself!
Verse 12 starts a list of wonders. Failure stands on both sides of that list:
The psalm states plainly what caused Ephraim's turning away (vv. 10, 11). They did not keep the covenant, and they forgot God's works and the wonders He had shown them. The works described next (vv. 12–16), and the lessons they could teach, were lost on the people. They rebelled against God, tested Him in their heart in the wilderness, and spoke against Him (vv. 17–19).
The same deadness reappears centuries later, when the Messiah Himself was standing in front of them:
The Pharisees ignored all this display of loving power on purpose. Their hardness of heart stood out after the repeated miracle of the multiplied loaves. It was typical of the nation as a whole from the day when Jehovah brought them out of the land of Egypt. Then "they did not remember his power or the day when he redeemed them from the foe, when he performed his signs in Egypt and his marvels in the fields of Zoan." All the Old Testament prophets charged them with hard, unfeeling hearts toward God's marvellous mercies. Those hearts were still unchanged, even when Messiah Himself was among them.
Remembering Egypt was never meant to stop with one generation:
I notice the teaching of children as the order of blessing in it… It is a mark of that age, and of blessing in right order. Christianity does not pass it by either: see Ephesians 6:4… The psalm goes through their history, not just to show what they were, but to show what He is — to provide in grace the only security they had, a record of grace.
The wonders of Zoan reformed no one, so God fell back on something in Himself:
Sovereign grace is God's only resource, if He is to bless man. All His dealings, however gracious, fail to reach their goal. He loves His people, but He has no resource for blessing them except His own grace.
- Place. Zoan was Egypt's capital plain. Moses met Pharaoh there and the plagues fell there. The psalm uses the exact name the Egyptians used.
- Purpose. The wonders answered Pharaoh's question, "Who is Jehovah?" They showed him he was nothing before God.
- Proof. God did them in full view of the fathers. The generation that failed had seen everything with their own eyes.
- Problem. Seeing changed nothing. They had no regard for God Himself — and the same hardness was there again when Messiah stood among them.
- Provision. No dealing reformed them, so God fell back on sovereign grace — and the story passed to the children as a record of grace.
He clave the sea, and caused them to pass through; and made the waters to stand as a heap;
Psalm 78 retells the nation's history in order, so that the next generation will hear it. Verse 13 is where that story starts: God split the sea and walked a whole people through it.
Verse 13 is not a stand-alone wonder. It opens an ordered account of the past. One writer notes what that order is meant to teach:
Its structure also deserves attention. From verse 12 on, the psalm lists in order the main events in the nation's history. It runs from their deliverance out of Egypt to David becoming king. The moral contrasts on display press home one lesson throughout: the abounding and finally triumphant grace of Israel's God.
The verse pictures water standing up and holding its shape while a nation walks between. One writer states the wonder, then asks the obvious question:
Then God divided the Red Sea. He made the waters stand upright, a wall on either side of a passage, so that Israel might pass through unharmed (v. 13). How could Israel ever forget such a miracle?
A wind blew, and Moses held out his rod. Writers separate the visible means from the authority behind it:
God used the "strong east wind" as His instrument to split the Red Sea. The waters stood as crystal walls on either side and made a path for His people to pass through to the other side. Yet the power and authority of God rested in the rod that Moses stretched out.
The line says God made them pass through — not around. Writers read the sea as a picture of death itself, opened up and crossed:
So God opened a way through death for His people. On the one hand, He shielded them from Satan's power. On the other, He delivered them from death by death. This is what the Red Sea pictures — death, and resurrection as well, since the people came through to the other side. "As a moral type," to use another's words, "the Red Sea is clearly the death and resurrection of Jesus... God acted in it to bring them through death, out of sin and this present world. He gave them complete deliverance from both by death — the death Christ had gone into — so the enemy could no longer reach them."
The standing waters did more than get out of the way. What should have drowned them guarded them:
Israel marched forward along the pathway through the mighty waters. The depths lay hidden in the heart of the sea. The light of God's glory-cloud lit up the crystal walls on either side of the pathway through death. The sea had lost its strength, and the powers of nature were both suspended and used for the salvation of Israel. Death, as it were, became a wall of defence to Israel on the right hand and on the left as they passed through the sea.
Every active verb in the verse belongs to God. Israel's share was to walk:
After they left Egypt, their first experience of God's power was the sea turned into dry ground before them. Pharaoh's army drowned in the very waters that had been a protecting wall to them on the right hand and on the left. There was only one way through the sea, lit by the glory in the cloud. They had only to walk in it and enjoy the deliverance God had worked, and in which they had had no hand whatever.
The psalm says the generation that saw this later forgot it. One writer traces that to something deeper than a weak memory:
Why did they forget God's works and His former wonders? (v. 11). Because they had no regard for God Himself!
The cure is to go back to the first great deliverance and stand there again:
The rallying point of faith in time of trial is the first display of grace. To an Israelite, remembering the deliverance from Egypt is the test of active faith. In the same way, for the tried believer now it is the CROSS that gives the way out of the dim darkness Satan is sometimes allowed to wrap around our conscience... Because Israel forgot that first deliverance, they went on stubbornly in the way of evil.
- Remembered — Verse 13 opens an ordered retelling of the nation's history. Its lesson is the abounding and finally triumphant grace of God.
- Divided — God made the waters stand up as walls, and Israel walked through unharmed. A wind was the means, but God's own authority lay behind the rod.
- Through — Commentators read the crossing as a picture of death and resurrection. God opened a way through death and brought His people out beyond the enemy's reach.
- Defended — What should have drowned them became their wall. They only had to walk the one lit path; the deliverance was God's work, not theirs.
- Forgotten — A generation that saw all this forgot it, because they had no regard for God Himself. Faith comes back when we return to that first great deliverance.
And he led them with a cloud in the daytime, and all the night with the light of fire.
Psalm 78 retells Israel's story. Verse 14 sits in a fast list of God's wonders, just after the parting of the sea. One sentence covers the whole desert journey: God Himself went ahead of His people, day and night, in a form they could see.
The psalm does not recite the past for its own sake. It presses the hearer's conscience, and the writer speaks with God's authority.
The psalmist speaks with the authority of one coming from God. He appeals to the people to listen to the testimony of the law. He is about to utter a parable: he gives us, in fact, history. This history shows us the failure of the people of God. But it is also a parable, teaching the hidden way of God to those who turn their ear to listen. Such people will see the strength of the Lord behind the failure and weakness of the people. So the history of the people turns into praise of the Lord.
The need behind this gift is easy to miss. Israel was not walking a marked route; there was nothing to follow.
They are about to enter on a trackless waste. No man dwelt where Israel was soon to travel. There were no landmarks, no signposts there. Its barrenness would demand bread from heaven. Its drought would demand water from the Rock. But its pathlessness would just as surely need a Leader. He who was going to open angels' stores for them, and rivers in rocks, would raise up a Pillar for them — cloud by day and fire by night — so that they might still be on their way, whether by night or day.
Cloud by day, fire by night. The form always matched the need.
It was no unknown God who laid claim to their obedience... He had made the sea to yield a path for their escape, the waters standing as a heap while they passed through. He had Himself led them by that which, always the opposite of nature, answered to their need, a cloud by day, the light of fire by night.
That contrast had a practical result.
The pillar made them independent of circumstances — able to travel by day or by night. The Keeper of Israel is with them, watching without sleep and caring without pause. He leads; they follow. In the wilderness, where there is no way, He marks the way. And this is only a picture of the greater glory that goes with us now, though it is hidden.
The same pillar did more than point the way. It covered them from the desert sun and lit the camp after dark.
The Lord makes it clear that they belong to Him... Who would not be a Christian? I have the Lord not only for my life, and my shelter, but also for my guide. If God's people wanted light by night, His presence was their light in the pillar of fire. If they wanted shade by day, He spread His cloud over them.
Guidance of this kind carried a cost. Israel could enjoy the covering only by surrendering the timetable.
This pillar of Cloud stood for the Divine Presence. It protected them from the fierce heat by day and from the countless dangers and terrors of the night. It guided vast numbers of wayward and ignorant people through the empty, howling desert, home to the promised land. But for this, the people had to follow the movements of the cloud at every stage of the journey. Here we have the two great essential principles of protection and subjection.
The wonder was not a one-off rescue. Israel saw it every day of the journey.
Then through the wilderness God led them with a cloud going before during the day and at night with a pillar of fire (v. 14). So every day they had the privilege of seeing God step in with a miracle.
What was true for Israel holds for the believer now.
Israel did not depend on their own knowledge of the land they had to cross. They simply followed God's direction. The believer does not need to know in advance where he should travel. He may depend completely on the guidance of the Holy Spirit, however little he understands it.
- Need — The desert had no landmarks and no signposts, so a Leader was as necessary as bread and water.
- Gift — God led them Himself. The form was always the opposite of the conditions: cloud in the glare, fire in the dark.
- Reach — Shelter by day, light by night. No circumstance could stop the march.
- Cost — Protection came with subjection. They moved when the cloud moved and stayed when it stayed.
- Failure — The people still failed. The psalm retells that history as a lesson for anyone who will listen.
He clave rocks in the wilderness, and gave [them] drink as out of the depths, abundantly;
This verse remembers water in a desert: God broke open rock so His people could drink. The psalm retells it for a later generation, and three questions follow. What did the rock stand for? Why does the psalm say the water came as from the deep? And how could a people supplied like this still fail?
The psalm moves through three stages: Egypt, the wilderness, and the land. The rock belongs to the middle stage. One writer points out where the worst failure came, and what the record is meant to prove.
Psalm 78 points to the time when God took up the nation out of Egypt, brought them through the wilderness and even into the land. It is very telling, and a warning to us, that this nation's greatest failure came when they were in the land. Their greatest failure came when they held their God-given privileges, when they had divine power available to them, and when they were under God-appointed leadership in the land flowing with milk and honey. The point of taking up this history is to show that God has a resource in the face of human failure, in every situation.
The water reached the camp through many channels, but it had only one source. The New Testament says what that source stood for.
The Spirit of God describes that scene in Psalm 78. The servant struck the rock, and there gushed out the refreshment that God gave for His weary people. It followed them through their whole wilderness journey, for they were the redeemed of the Lord. The water ran through many channels to quench the thirst of those great hosts of God, but the source was one — the struck rock. The tenth chapter of first Corinthians tells us what that Rock was: "For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ." The rock was Christ, and the water, the Spirit of God.
God chose the least likely place for water. He also chose a tool already known for judgment.
Here Horeb, "the dry place," yields water. The Lord Himself is there. He stands on the rock, and that rock is there to display His power, His sufficiency and His grace all at once. The rod that had struck the river now strikes the rock. It is the rod of power, used for His people, and the streams gush out in abundant supply for all Israel's thirsty crowds. The striking of our living Rock has created for us a spring of refreshment and satisfaction. It is as endless as the eternal source it flows from, and that source is God Himself — the God whose name is love.
Israel got water from a rock twice. One writer reads the two accounts as a contrast, not one story told twice.
In Exodus, at God's direction, Moses struck the rock with his rod of judgment. The gift of the Spirit is from Christ after He was struck, and suffered for us. In Numbers it was the opposite. God told Moses to take Aaron's rod of priestly grace from before the Lord. He and Aaron were to speak to the rock in front of the people, and then it would give water. But there they failed… Striking was as wrong now as it had been right before. There is no call to repeat the work of humiliation.
The verse says the drink came abundantly, as from the deep. That kind of supply lasts a whole journey, not a day.
Wherever they went at God's direction, they always had that water flowing alongside them. It never failed; they drank of the rock that followed them… Whatever they needed — a drink, water for cooking, for washing, for all sorts of uses — there it was, flowing, flowing, available for every call, every camp. And there was no other resource in the wilderness. That river received no tributary; it never ran dry.
Later in the psalm the people point back to this very miracle and still doubt God.
The past mercy and faithfulness of God will not give courage for a present difficulty. We must know God by a faith that works now. "Can God spread a table in the wilderness?… He struck the rock… Can He also give bread?" Experience of goodness and power will not make man trust it, when some new need is there, or some craving is at work… The moment I suppose anything cannot be for blessing, I limit God. This is a great sin — doubly so, when we think of all He has done for us.
- Dry place. God chose Horeb, "the dry place," to give water — His power and grace shown where nature offered nothing.
- One blow. The rod of judgment struck the rock once. God never called for that blow again; later Israel only had to speak to the rock.
- One source. Many channels ran through the camp, but all the water came from one struck rock. Scripture names that rock as Christ, and the water pictures the Spirit.
- No end. The stream received no tributary and never ran dry; it was there at every camp, for every need, the whole journey.
- One warning. Past mercies do not create present faith. To assume any situation is beyond blessing is to limit God — a great sin, and greater still given all He has done.
And he brought streams out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers.
Psalm 78 is a long retelling of Israel's history, given so that a later generation would know what God had done. Verse 16 pauses on one moment in the desert — water coming out of solid rock, and not in a trickle but in rivers.
The psalm looks back to the desert, where God's servant struck a rock and water poured out for a thirsty nation. One writer names what the rock and the water stand for:
Yes, the servant struck the rock, and there gushed out the refreshment that God gave for His weary people. It followed them through their whole wilderness journey, for they were the redeemed of the Lord. Many channels may have carried it to quench the thirst of those vast hosts of God. But the source was one — the struck rock. The tenth chapter of First Corinthians tells us what that Rock was: "they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ." The rock was Christ, and the water, the Spirit of God.
The rock stood in the desert before anyone drank from it. Its presence alone was not enough:
Here we have the refreshing stream gushing from the struck rock. It is a beautiful type of the Spirit given as the fruit of Christ's accomplished sacrifice. In Exodus 16 we have a picture of Christ coming down from heaven to give life to the world. In Exodus 17 we have a picture of the Holy Spirit poured out because of Christ's finished work. "They drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ." But who could drink until the Rock was struck? Israel might have gazed at that rock and died of thirst while gazing. Until it was struck by the rod of God, it could yield no refreshment.
The rivers of verse 16 were not a reward for good behaviour:
In the gift of water, as of bread, we find the stamp of grace. God sent it in answer to the people's complaining.
The same writer states the principle behind it:
Grace is a mightier triumph over sin than is judgment.
The verse piles up words for abundance — streams, waters, rivers. That abundance has a purpose beyond the drinker:
If in the manna we have a picture of the humbled Christ as our food, here we have the indwelling Spirit. He is with us throughout our wilderness journey, one of the blessed results and fruits of the death and glorification of Christ. The rock is Christ. The waters, without doubt, here as elsewhere, picture the Holy Spirit. He is the refreshment and the source of power and blessing, not only for ourselves but for others down here… This water, unlike that in Exodus 16, is not for our own refreshment alone. It is to run out from us, so that we ourselves, filled with the Spirit, are to be as streams in the desert.
A few verses later the psalm shows Israel reciting this very miracle and still doubting God. One writer makes the sharp distinction:
Memory is not faith. I will give you a remarkable Scripture in proof of that, in Psalm 78:19. "They spoke against God, saying, 'Can God spread a table in the wilderness?' He struck the rock so that water gushed out and streams overflowed" — there is memory. But look at the next sentence: "Can he also give bread?" — there is the absence of faith. There was the memory, the recollection of what He had done before, but there was no present faith about what He could do now.
One writer reads the whole psalm as the story of a believer's failure, and names its root:
Here we have the answer to the mystery of his ruined state — the secret cause of his failure and of the rejection that followed… Distrust of the grace of God explains it.
Another writer points to the remedy:
The rallying point of faith in a time of trial is the first display of grace. For an Israelite, remembering the deliverance from Egypt is the test of living faith. In the same way, for the tried believer now, it is the CROSS that provides the way out. Satan is sometimes allowed to cloud our conscience with a misty darkness… Because Israel forgot that first deliverance, they went stubbornly on in the way of evil.
- Struck. The rock gave nothing while it stood untouched. Water came only after the blow — a picture of the Spirit given as the fruit of Christ's finished work.
- Given. The rivers came in answer to complaining, not merit. Grace is a mightier triumph over sin than judgment.
- One source. Many channels carried the water through the camp. There was only one spring — the struck rock, and that Rock was Christ.
- Flowing on. The water is not for our own refreshment alone. Those filled with the Spirit are to be streams in the desert.
- Forgotten. Israel could recite this miracle and still ask whether God could provide. Memory is not faith, and distrust of grace is what ruined them.
Yet they still went on sinning against him, provoking the Most High in the desert;
Psalm 78 retells Israel's story, and verse 17 turns to what the people did in return. The key word is "yet": rescue, water from the rock and a guiding cloud left them sinning more, in the very place where God had proved Himself.
The verse comes straight after a list of God's wonders. What did they produce in the people?
The people had gained nothing from God's testimony... Sadly, they sinned yet more and more. They gained nothing from the testimony their fathers gave them, and nothing from the miracles done before their eyes... Men speak against God when there are no miracles. They ask, "Why does He not step in?" They forget that when God did miracles before the eyes of men, they spoke against God. Miracles and signs do not change the heart of man. Miracles or no miracles, the natural man is unbelieving.
"In the desert" is more than scene-setting. God had just shown His power there, for them. That setting exposes the real root of their sin.
They provoked the Most High in the desert — the very place where He had shown His supremacy over all nature beyond doubt, on their behalf... Miracles did not stop the craving of hearts turned away from God. For them, one thing denied could turn the generous Giver into someone unable to secure their blessing... Unbelief was the only sin with them, as it has always been the sin that provoked judgment. Their unbelief did not come from a lack of evidence, for there was plenty. It came from wills that rebelled against His easy yoke.
The psalm calls Him "the Most High". That name has a meaning of its own.
The name El is also joined to ELION, and the two together give us "the Most High God." Look at the various places where this name appears, and you will see that it is God's "millennial name above all idolatrous gods and demons and all power." In this character Scripture calls Him "possessor of heaven and earth."
They already had every reason to know who He was.
Such grace should have produced serious repentance and faith. Instead, Israel only sinned more against God in proud rebellion, though it was clear that He is "the Most High."
If the wonders were so recent, how could the people doubt at all? One answer: memory is not faith.
The past mercy and faithfulness of God will not give courage for a present difficulty. We must know God by a present faith. No reasoning from former mercies will give us confidence... Experience of goodness and power will not make man trust it when some new need is there, or lust is at work.
A record of repeated failure sounds hopeless. The psalm does not end there.
Psalm 78 is clearly a summary of Israel's history. It convicts them of their disobedience and unbelief. It shows that all God's dealings with them did nothing for their hearts. Then, in a magnificent turn, He goes to His own sovereign grace to bless. Even so, the psalm shows some marks of unbelief, and warnings about it, that we will profit from noting... Sovereign grace is the only resource God has if He is to bless man. All His dealings, however gracious, fail to reach their goal.
- Yet — the small word carries the verse. God's wonders were fresh in front of them, and the response was not less sin but more.
- Where — they sinned in the desert, the very place where God had just shown His power on their behalf.
- Whom — they provoked the Most High, God's name above all idols and powers, the possessor of heaven and earth.
- Why — evidence was not missing; there was plenty. Their wills rebelled. Miracles never changed a heart, and the natural man stays unbelieving with them or without them.
- So what — past mercies will not carry you through today's trial. We must know God by a present faith. When every dealing fails, His own sovereign grace is the one thing that can still bless.
And they tempted God in their heart, by asking meat for their lust;
Israel had seen the sea opened and water burst from the rock, yet in the desert they demanded food. The psalm puts that sin in the heart — so what does it mean to test God, and when does asking Him for something become sin?
Scripture uses one word two ways, and the difference decides everything.
The difference is clear when we read on the one hand that God tempted or tested Abraham (Gen. 22:1 and Heb. 11:17), and on the other that Israel tempted God (Ps. 78:18, 41, 56, compared with Ex. 17:7). God never tempts anyone to evil, but He may and does bring out their faith and faithfulness. Sadly it is far too common for His people to tempt Him by doubting His mercy and His active care. That is why Deut. 6:16 says, "You shall not put the LORD your God to the test." The Lord answered the devil with those words when the devil told Him to throw Himself down from the top of the temple. He refused to test God, as if God's protection were doubtful on the path of obedience.
So this is not a sin of the body. It is a sin about God's character, and it shows up where His goodness is needed most.
Whenever there is real need in the wilderness, it is a sin to doubt whether God will help us or not. … Tempting the Lord is doubting the supply of His goodness in giving all that we need.
Israel said the words out loud, but the psalm points to the heart. And while they put God on trial, the trial was running the other way.
They questioned whether God could spread a table for them in the wilderness. At other times they asked, "Is the Lord among us or not?" But notice this: when Israel put God to the test, God was the one testing them. Compare Ps. 95:9 with Deut. 8:2 and Deut. 33:8 (where "holy one" is Israel).
They did ask God. That is what makes the verse so searching: it had the shape of prayer, but not the motive.
They tested God by demanding food — not to enable them to survive to serve the Lord, but to satisfy their own lusts (v. 18). … They as much as said, "Water is one thing, but we want more than that."
The verses just before list wonders God did in front of them. It changed nothing. That answers anyone who says they would believe if only they saw a miracle.
They tempted God by speaking against Him. By a miracle God had given them streams to quench their thirst. Still their unbelief said, "Can God spread a table in the wilderness?" They did admit that God had worked a miracle for them. But they said, in effect, "He has given us water; can He give us bread?" People speak against God when there are no miracles and ask, "Why does He not step in?" They forget that when God did work miracles in front of people, they spoke against God. Miracles and signs do not change the heart of man. Miracles or no miracles, the natural man is unbelieving.
Behind that question is a limit set on God Himself. The word "limited" below comes from an older translation; the ESV reads "provoked."
Experience of His goodness and power will not make man trust it when some new need arises, or when lust is at work. … "They tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel." This is mistrust of God's power. It is doubt that He can carry out all His grace, do whatever His people need in any situation, and fulfil His purposes for them. The moment I assume that anything cannot be for blessing, I limit God.
God gave them the meat. That was not the end of the story. The line "sent leanness into their soul" is older wording; the ESV reads "sent a wasting disease among them."
The last part of our chapter shows the people enjoying what their hearts had craved — a miserable and deadly enjoyment. "He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul." They got what they longed for and found it was death. They wanted meat, and with the meat came the judgment of God. This is very solemn. May we take the warning! The poor heart is full of empty desires and hateful cravings. The heavenly manna fails to satisfy. There must be something else. God allows us to have it. But what then? Leanness — barrenness — judgment!
- Heart first. The psalm puts the sin in the heart. The words sounded like a call for food; underneath was doubt about whether God is good and present.
- Heart tested. While Israel put God on trial, God was proving them. Their demand did not expose Him; it exposed them.
- Heart craving. They asked for food to feed appetite, not to keep them going in God's service. You can bring a prayer to God and still sin in praying it.
- Heart unmoved. They had already seen the sea, the cloud and the water from the rock. Signs and wonders do not produce faith. The natural heart stays unbelieving either way.
- Heart impoverished. He gave them what they asked and sent leanness with it. Getting the thing you crave from God's hand can be the heaviest answer of all.
And they spoke against God they said, Is God able to prepare a table in the wilderness?
Israel had just watched water burst from a struck rock. Yet their next words were not thanks but a challenge to God, and commentators ask why the miracle produced no faith.
The question was not honest enquiry. It came from people who had already admitted what God had done for them.
God's testimony did the people no good. How did they act when they saw these wonders? Sadly, they sinned more and more. The testimony their fathers passed on did not help them, and neither did the miracles worked before their eyes. They tempted God by speaking against Him. By a miracle God had given them streams to quench their thirst. Yet their unbelief said, "Can God spread a table in the wilderness?" They admit that God had worked a miracle for them. But in effect they said, "He has given us water — can He give us bread?" Men speak against God when there are no miracles, and ask, "Why does He not step in?" They forget that when God did work miracles before the eyes of men, they spoke against God. Miracles and signs do not change the heart of man. Miracles or no miracles, the natural man is unbelieving.
The verse holds two things together: recalling the rock, and trusting God for the next meal.
Memory is not faith. I will give you a remarkable Scripture to prove it, in Psalm 78:19. "Yes," says the psalmist, speaking of Israel, "they spoke against God, saying, 'Can God spread a table in the wilderness? He struck the rock so that water gushed out and streams overflowed'" — there is memory. But look at the next sentence: "Can He also give bread?" — there is the absence of faith. The memory was there — they recalled what He had done before. But they had no present faith about what He could do now.
This failure is not only Israel's. Doubting what God can do touches who He is.
The past mercy and faithfulness of God will not give courage for a present difficulty. We must know God by a present faith. Experience of goodness and power will not make man trust it when some new need arises, or lust is at work… "They tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel." That is mistrust of God's power to carry out all His grace, to do whatever His people need, and to fulfil His purposes for them. The moment I think that anything cannot be for blessing, I limit God. This is a great sin — doubly so when we think of all He has done for us… This, however, is infinite goodness. But to doubt His power is to doubt that He is God.
The demand had a motive, and it was not survival.
They tested God by demanding food — not so that they could live and serve the Lord, but to satisfy their own lusts (v. 18). God had brought water from the rock. Now, in haughty contempt, they question whether He can prepare a table in the wilderness and provide bread for them (v. 19). They as much as said, "Water is one thing, but we want more than that."
The psalm names the root cause under all these failures. The Spirit kept the record for later readers.
Their ways show a thorough rottenness of heart… God fed them by a miracle every day, yet they kept tempting Him through unbelief… Verse 22 discloses the root of all this evil: "they did not believe in God." No heart is right with Him unless it is born of Him — unless faith in His saving grace has established it. Meanwhile, the Church receives her needed warning through the Spirit's record of what happened to that faithless generation.
God settled the question by giving. The gift exposed how hard their hearts were.
The reason is simple: "they did not believe in God and did not trust His saving power" (v. 22). Yet He had opened the doors of heaven to rain down manna for them to eat (vv. 23-24). This amazing miracle went on through their whole wilderness journey. It should have awakened the deepest thanksgiving in Israel. But how callous is the natural heart of man! The manna is called "the grain of heaven" and "the bread of the angels," showing how wonderful this provision was.
Israel asked, "Can God…?" Faith takes the opposite stand.
It is a terrible thing to limit "the Holy One of Israel." He delights to be trusted and used. Faith can never overdraw its account in God's bank. God could no more disappoint faith than He could deny Himself. He can never say to faith, "You have miscalculated; you aim too high and stand too boldly; so come down and expect less."
- Memory — They could recite the miracle at the rock and still not trust God for bread. Memory is not faith.
- Miracles — Signs do not change the heart. Man complains when God does nothing, and speaks against Him when He acts.
- Motive — The demand came from appetite, not need: water was not enough, they wanted more.
- Mistrust — To call anything beyond God is to limit the Holy One of Israel. To doubt His power is to doubt that He is God.
- Manna — God opened heaven and rained down manna. Faith cannot ask too much of Him, and it can never overdraw His account.
Behold, he smote the rock, and waters gushed out, and streams overflowed; is he able to give bread also, or provide flesh for his people?
This verse sits inside a long retelling of Israel's journey through the wilderness. The people admit that God split the rock and gave them water. In the same breath they ask whether He can supply bread and meat too. Their question is not curiosity. It is what unbelief sounds like when a new need appears.
The first half of the verse looks back to the day a struck rock poured out water for a whole nation. One writer follows the picture to its meaning:
Yes, the servant struck the rock, and there gushed out the refreshment that God gave for His weary people. It followed them all through their wilderness journey, for they were the redeemed of the Lord. The water reached those great crowds through many channels, but it had one source — the struck rock. First Corinthians chapter ten tells us what that Rock was: "For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ."
The people get the facts right. Their memory of the miracle was not the problem.
"They spoke against God, saying, 'Can God spread a table in the wilderness? He struck the rock so that water gushed out and streams overflowed'" — there is memory. But look at the next sentence: "Can He also give bread?" There is the absence of faith. They remembered what He had done before. But they had no present faith about what He could do now.
They granted the water and doubted the bread, as if one gift proved nothing about the next.
By a miracle God had provided the streams to quench their thirst. Still their unbelief said, "Can God spread a table in the wilderness?" They admit that God had worked miracles for them. But they said, in effect, "He has given us water — can He give us bread?" Men speak against God when there are no miracles, and ask, "Why does He not step in?" They forget that when God did work miracles before the eyes of men, they spoke against God. Miracles and signs do not change the heart of man.
Because past evidence had no effect, the psalm becomes a study in how unbelief works, and how it must be answered.
The past mercy and faithfulness of God will not give courage for a present difficulty. God must be known by a present faith. No reasoning from former mercies will give us confidence. "Can God furnish a table in the wilderness? … He struck the rock … can He give bread also!" Experience of goodness and power will not make man trust it when some new need is there, or when desire is at work.
The same writer weighs how serious the question is. To doubt what God will give is one thing; to doubt what He can do is another:
The moment I assume that anything cannot be for blessing, I limit God. This is a great sin — twice over when we think of all He has done for us. The Holy Spirit always reasons from God's revealed infinite love to everything that follows from it. He reconciled us; surely He will save us to the end. He did not spare His Son; how could He not give us all things? That, however, is infinite goodness; but doubting His power is doubting that He is God.
Their question changes who God is in their own eyes.
Miracles did not silence the craving of hearts turned away from God. For such hearts, one thing denied was enough to turn the generous Giver into someone who could not secure the blessing of the people He had taken charge of. Yet in the same breath they admit what He had already done in bringing water out of the rock. To provide meat, they thought, was harder, and beyond His ability… Unbelief was their only sin. It has always been the sin that brings judgment. It did not come from lack of evidence, for there was plenty of that. It came from wills that rebelled against His easy yoke.
Unbelief forgets whose problem the shortage really is. And there is something worse than a request refused.
Man forgets that the difficulty is before God, and that it concerns God. The disciples in the boat tossed by the storm were afraid, as if they could perish with Jesus on board! God has tied His glory to our interests. Our unbelief pulls our interests away from His glory. The heaviest discipline from God is when He gives what the flesh craves.
- Rock — Water from the struck rock followed them all through the journey. Writers name that Rock as Christ.
- Memory — They got the facts right and still failed. Remembering what God did is not the same as trusting Him now.
- Limit — Assume that something cannot be for blessing, and you limit God. Doubting His power is doubting that He is God.
- Will — The problem was never a shortage of proof. Evidence was abundant; the resistance was in the will, and signs do not change the heart.
- Table — When God gives what the flesh craves, that is His heaviest discipline. The answer you insist on can be the judgment you receive.